Characteristics and Preparedness for COVID-19 Outbreaks of Australian Residential Aged Care Facilities: a Cross-sectional Survey

  1. Gwendolyn L Gilbert
  2. Jenna Smith
  3. Erin Cvejic
  4. Alan Lilly
  5. Kirsten McCaffery

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Objective

To provide an overview of Australian residential aged care facilities’ (RACFs’) COVID-19 outbreak preparedness and responses, 12 months after the pandemic began in early 2020.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey of RACF managers was conducted as part of an overview of COVID-19 experience during 2020. Survey questions were based on findings of previous outbreak reviews.

Results

Comparison with available data from the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare suggested that survey respondents (n=331) were a representative sample. Almost all RACFs had outbreak management plans, including provision for a surge workforce. However, anticipated staff replacements fell short of those often required during outbreaks. Staff of most (83%) RACFs had completed online infection control training, and a smaller proportion (73%) face-to-face training, by the time of the survey. Exploratory analyses to identify RACF characteristics associated with increased outbreak risk found a strong association with location in Victoria (adjusted risk ratio [aRR] 12.8) where most community transmission occurred during 2020. The only other association was an increased risk in facilities where all staff had not completed face-to-face infection control training (aRR 2.1). Respondents ranked leadership and management; planning and preparation; and infection control as the top three of seven critical lines of defence against COVID-19.

Conclusion

Survey results suggest that, in early 2021, most Australian RACFs were better prepared for the ongoing risk of COVID-19 than in 2020. Continued implementation of the Aged Care Royal Commission’s recommendations is needed to ensure the aged care sector is prepared for future infectious disease emergencies.

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.05.22270416: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    An invitation to participate, with a link to the online survey, was emailed on February 23, with a reminder on March 5 2021, to the DoH Bulk Information Distribution Systems (BIDS) mailing list, to which representatives (managers/senior staff) of most individual RACFs subscribe.
    DoH Bulk Information Distribution Systems
    suggested: None
    Statistical analyses were conducted using Stata/IC v16.1 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA).
    StataCorp
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.05.22270416v1 on medRxiv